gujarati thali

I tend to make four items when cooking gujarati food - roti (flatbread), sabji (vegetable dish), dal (lentils) and rice.

In the thali above, I made some stir fried cabbage with carrots, sauteed okra with besan (chickpea flour), roti and beet greens dal and some rice which I forgot to get a picture of. So healthy and filling. Really reminded me of some good home food. What's in your thali?

indian chinese dinner

We had some company drop by and I made some favorite indo-chinese dishes - hakka noodles, garlic broccoli and szechuan green beans.

Everyone was really happy with the choices.

mango kulfi and rose watermelon slushie

my cousin, his wife, the baby and her parents came over this weekend. it's so hard to decide what to feed out of guests isn't it? first i wanted to keep it simple, but then i start to second guess myself and ended up talking myself out of it. and then i decided on north indian.

this is what i made:

watermelon & rose slushie
stuffed bell peppers in makhni sauce from swati's delicious blog, chatkhor (i baked the stuffed bell peppers instead of shallow frying and added kasuri methi and yogurt to the gravy)
sauteed gingered cauliflower with peas
onion kulcha & chilli naan
jeera rice
vegetable puffs
kadhi
gajar halwa
mango kulfi

mango kulfi: mix some cream cheese until smooth, add a few fresh pureed mangoes and some whipping cream & freeze in popsicle or kulfi molds.

rose watermelon slushie: puree some watermelon, add a few tablespoons rose syrup & takmaria or sabja seeds. serve over crushed ice.

i don't have exact recipes because i just winged it.

so what do you guys think of the menu? what do you make when entertaining? do you go all out or try to keep it simple?